An outline of a Weberian program for understanding Pentecostalism

Abstract

I intend to map the historical and ideological impediments and also the possibilities of building a theoretical and empirical research program organized from Max Weber’s ideas about a religious phenomenon which the author did not witnessed, namely, Pentecostalism. In view of this goal I will construct my arguments into four distinct areas: (1) “Pentecostalism Analysis Mainstream and the rejection of the Weberian perspective”; (2) “Max Weber and Materialism”; (3) “Pentecostalism and Capitalism”; (4) “The promise of salvation for a new class in history” and finally (5) “Notes about religious cognition and Pentecostalism”. At the end of this article I do not claim to present a final thesis on Pentecostalism, but rather a set of well solid assumptions, tom old a research program to be developed and tested.